Note: I ended the last STL with a promise to followup in a week. That was almost a year ago, but I'll give it a try. My goal is to write something every day in May, so I figure why not dredge up memories of things I read a year ago.
Speaking of memorious dredgery, here's what I read in the month just ended:
77 Dream Songs by John Berryman. I loved this both for the skeptical approach to the self and occasional stunning bit of pure poetry. I'm struggling to express what I mean by his approach, but he struggles in his masks, including the very awkward blackface which nonetheless can produce a beautiful line like [the] "Honey dusk do sprawl" or wearing another, transparent, mask "The weather fleured" (hilariously progressing from "The weather was fine" and "The weather was very fine.") or "O Adlai mine" (disclosing his vote) or the comic and awkward "What wonders is/ she sitting on, over there?"
Invinicible: Head of the Class by Robert Kirkman, volume 4. I think of this as being meringue-like comic book perfection, but while it is perfection, a lot of heavy shit goes on.
Reckless: Destroy All Monsters by Brubraker and Phillips. Scribbles in the margins of noir.
His Toy, His Dream, His Rest by John Berryman. Being a continuation of Dream Songs. Some flashes of the earlier brilliance, but would be stronger if the number of poems was cut by half. At least. At some point in the not too distant future someone will be the last to read Berryman, given his blackface and tendency to mention suicide toward the end of every poem. That'll be a shame.
The Day's Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beach by Stephen Dobyns. I like one of his novels. These are his poems, which are competent. The best line is the title.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It may be the quintessential science fiction novel for two reasons 1) the science reflects and is reflected by the plot and theme (and characterization and structure). 2)It imagines a coherent future (a few of them, actually) while reflecting the present (several of those two, actually). I first read this as a a teenagers, when I did not know much about anti war movement, zero population growth, Future Shock, sexual revolution, about hippies and back to the land, about the best and the brightest, about gay liberation or really even the ERA. Heck, I did not even know what cultural relativism was.
The Dolphin by Robert Lowell. Berryman was no gem, but at least he was aware of it. It seemst to me that these are garbage poems by a garbage human. Inspired me to put Elizabeth Hardwick's essays on reserve.
Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman and Sam Kieth. Oh, the Robert Smithiness of it all! Did not age well, though the appeal of the Death story makes sense.
Barbarella by Jean-Claude Forest. All of the structural intricacy of softcore porn with none of the surface pleasures.
Astro City: Metrobook by Busiek and Anderson. A repackaging of the first three collections all of which I've read before. The expanded format allows restores the original publication order--previously, the Confessor story was pulled out from the middle of the second series to be published on its own, while all the short stories were grouped together. This is at least my third reading of this material and I still love Astro City. The short stories are among the best in the genre.
Breezeway by John Ashbery. Did I mention it was National Poetry Month? I'd like to say you never need an excuse to read Ashbery, but apparently I do. This is late Ashbery, published as he turned 88, but late Ashbery is a very good Ashbery indeed.
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes. Hayes is a terrifically inventive formalist best known for his book of "American sonnets." Here he invents the "golden shovel" which uses the words of another poem ("We Real Cool" in the first case) as the end words for each line of a new poem. He also adapts a PowerPoint style from Japanese business, called pecha kucha, which calls for 20 seconds of speech for each of 20 slides.
I Remember by Joe Brainard. I think this is a reread, but none of it came back to me. (I was reading several American Long Poems a week when I was working on my dissertation.) No reflection on the book which I entirely enjoyed, though in fact I've already forgotten most of what I read, again.
A Poet's Work by Sam Hamill. Essays from the eighties that I read in the early 90s. He writes very clearly about what he values so greatly in poetry. "I could say that poetry saved my life, but who would believe me?"
Measured by Stone by Sam Hamill. Poems from later in his life. He's still clear headed, this time about the fact that his poetry won't last past his lifetime. But I read it last week, so...
Totals: 15 books. 5 comics. 1 book of essays. 8 books of poetry. 6 rereads(!). 1 memoir.
